82 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



seeds and leaving too many plants in a clump, for, being 

 crowded, they never acquire a proper degree of strength ; 

 and hence, if they flower freely, the flowers are small and 

 are soon over. When walking round the kitchen garden, 

 you will sometimes see a stray plant of parsley in the 

 cabbage or onion plot, and it is sure to be robust and 

 handsome, so that a punnet may be filled with its beau- 

 tiful leaves, and still leave the plant looking pretty well. 

 The reason this stray plant is so strong, while the parsley 

 sown in the row next the walk is quite lean as compared 

 with it, is that it has enjoyed plenty of air and light, as is 

 the way of vagabonds ; and hence their rude health and easy 

 endurance of circumstances that would kill the pampered 

 ones right away. Now and then a stray plant of Virginia 

 stock may be seen in like manner, and then what a plant it 

 is ! We have met with single plants measuring six to nine 

 inches across a dense mass of healthy herbage, completely 

 smothered with flowers half as large again as those produced 

 on the thin, wiry plants where they are crowded in clumps 

 on the regulation pattern. And yet this lesson, so obvious 

 and so forcibly taught by nature, amateur gardeners are 

 very slow to learn, and they will go on sowing Virginia 

 stock and mignonette as if they would pave the ground 

 with the seed ; and, when the plants are up, will throw 

 away the second chance of success by refusing to thin 

 the plants, as they should, to from three to six inches 

 apart. 



Annuals are occasionally grown in first-rate style, and 

 if well selected are, in the early part of the summer, re- 

 markably effective. There is almost only one point of 

 importance in the practice, and it consists in sowing the 

 seeds in the autumn. 



